Missouri Announces Contract Extension for Football Coach Eli Drinkwitz

The Tigers have once again held their own in a stacked SEC.
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Missouri has agreed to a two-year contract extension with football coach Eli Drinkwitz, the school announced Saturday morning before the team’s game against Kentucky. 

The extension will keep Drinkwitz with the program through the 2027 season. He originally signed an agreement through the 2025 campaign after arriving in Columbia in ’19.

“My family and I want to thank the Board of Curators, President Choi, and AD Reed-Francois for their faith in me as a coach and leader,” Drinkwitz said in a statement. “You can’t do this alone, and our players, coaches and staff have worked their tails off and stuck with the process as we’ve built this program. We feel strongly about our trajectory and are proud to represent our state’s flagship institution. We are grateful for the investment in our program from the administration and excited about the future of Mizzou Football!”

Currently in his third season at Missouri, Drinkwitz has impressed thus far. He led the Tigers to bowl appearances in each of his first two seasons and has hovered around a .500 record, even while taking on a difficult SEC schedule.

Drinkwitz has also made tremendous strides on the recruiting trail, inking Missouri’s highest-ranked classes ever–No. 19 in 2022 and No. 20 in 2021–according to the school. Wide receiver Luther Burden III, the No. 4 overall prospect in the 2022 SI99 rankings, was a member of the Tigers recent freshman class.

This season, Drinkwitz has kept Missouri competitive once again. The Tigers are off to a 4–4 start headed into a game on Saturday against Kentucky (5–3). With matchups against top-ranked Tennessee, New Mexico State and Arkansas on the horizon, Missouri will need two more wins to ensure a third consecutive trip to a bowl game.

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For more Missouri coverage, go to Mizzou Sports Talk


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Zach Koons
ZACH KOONS

Zach Koons is a programming editor at Sports Illustrated who frequently writes about Formula One. He joined SI as a breaking/trending news writer in February 2022 before joining the programming team in 2023. Koons previously worked at The Spun and interned for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He currently hosts the "Bleav in Northwestern" podcast and received a bachelor's in journalism from Northwestern University.